Tuesday, 07 February 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Accusing the State government for remaining sluggish in dealing with the Joshimath disaster, the CPI (ML) Garhwal secretary Indresh Maikhuri has said that the government and its administrative machinery has ignored the warnings given by experts in the past. He said that the convenor of Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti Atul Sati was consistently warning about the danger from the last 14 months and he even took the initiative to get a survey of the city done by independent geologists. On the warning given in this survey the State government constituted a committee to study Joshimath in July 2022. This committee submitted its report in September 2022. Maikhuri said that though the committee in its report blamed the local people for the issue, its recommendations were also ignored by the government.
“This committee had advocated relocation of the people residing in the houses which were in danger and had said that a ban on the construction activities should be imposed but the administration took no action on these recommendations. Prior to it the government conducted a survey on the threat of disaster. This survey started in the year 2016 and ended in 2019. This report found that 50 per cent of the area of Uttarakhand is vulnerable to landslides and it had identified 6,536 landslides in the State. It said that a sum of Rs 180 crore is needed for treatment of these landslides annually. The report also said that the flash floods pose the maximum threat for the hydropower projects and had found 80 per cent of government buildings in Chamoli districts as unsafe,’’ he said.
The CPI (ML) leader who is actively participating in the save Joshimath campaign said that the many foreign agencies were also involved in the survey and although a considerable amount of money was paid to them, no action was taken on its report.
He alleged that the officer handling the disaster management department is a tainted officer. Maikhuri added that the Uttarakhand government has failed in reconstruction, rehabilitation and compensation for the affected families in Joshimath and to hide this failure the BJP State president is engaged in giving baseless statements.
